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It is a widely known fact that people who make their living near or on the sea tend to be a superstitious bunch and the people of coastal British Columbia were no different in that regard. Many of the men who constantly braved the treacherous western coast of North America often say how fate is a cruel and unusual mistress, the events that unfolded on that dreadful Sunday all those years ago in August of 1914 seem to provide credence to such a claim. Morale had been at an all time low when the news of the torpedo shipment made it’s way to Esquimalt, the atmosphere quickly turned to that of ecstatic celebration among the submarine crews and base personnel. It was not long though before that flame of hope ignited in their bellies was quickly tempered as the difficult reality of their situation set in, counting one's chickens before they hatched would be bad form especially as an errant fox lurked inside the henhouse. Commander Trousdale seemed to have been completely aware that how the Royal Canadian Navy conducted itself within the next few hours could very well result in them turning the tide of battle against the Germans and therefore, went to work almost immediately assembling a proper plan going forward. In order to do so effectively, Trousdale arranged a meeting of relevant personnel in the small room below his office which was being utilized as Esquimalt’s intelligence processing facility. Lieutenant Adrian Keyes, Chief Engine Room Artificer Reginald Wood and Barney Leitch Johnson all assembled alongside Trousdale and his Chief Intel Officer with haste in order to weigh their limited options moving forward. Keyes was a career submariner and overall officer in command of the two boat flotilla in Esquimalt, Wood was the de facto head engineer of Esquimalt naval base and finally, Johnson was the second in command of HMCS CC-2 alongside being a certified local Master Mariner with more than a few decades of sea experience.

This group wasted little time diving head long into addressing the myriad of pressing issues at hand. The main problem which hung over their heads was getting access to the torpedoes in the first place as at that point in history, the only way to bring large cargo shipments from mainland British Columbia to Vancouver Island was by transiting the Strait of Georgia. Railway carts would traditionally be placed aboard specially produced ferries or more commonly, loaded onto barges and hauled by tug back and forth. As one could imagine, such an option would provide a massive potential target for the still nearby Germans as it meandered slowly towards Esquimalt holding their only way of striking back against the enemy. Even that idea itself ran into many questions; the still ongoing attack meant that organizing an effective cargo run from the Vancouver area all the way over to Esquimalt would be time consuming and difficult. The state of the port infrastructure in Port Moody and Vancouver harbor was unknown at the time, damage to rail tracks and the clogging of piers by sunken vessels could make the docking and loading process even more tedious. It was fortunate that word of the attack had reached the express train before it pulled into Vancouver or Port Moody, the possibility of Leipzig sending this potentially battle altering shipment up in a cloud of fiery shrapnel while it was waiting on the tracks was a worrying reality. It sat in relative safety far inland at Port Coquitlam but would have to be shipped by rail to a portside area in order to be transferred aboard a transport.


Even though Barney Johnson was not a commissioned officer and by all aspects still a civilian, his loan from the British Columbia Pilotage Authority for the month of August had provided the Navy with a wealth of local knowledge. Johnson pointed out that even if they could secure an intact loading point alongside a vessel to carry the weapons, the time it would take to offload the weapons onto a ship, deliver them across the strait into Esquimalt and have them modified in order to properly arm the submarines would take the better part of the day to complete. Chief Artificer Wood agreed, the modifications to the submarines themselves had been completed to accommodate the different model of torpedo however, each torpedo had to have various external guide rods and studs taken off in order to be fired from the submarines. Once all of these things had been completed, the Canadian submarines would be just ready to put to sea while the Germans in all likelihood would have already flattened everything in sight and fled either northward or back out into the Pacific via their original route. A proposal was leveled where instructions on how to remove the studs and guide rods from the torpedoes would be sent to a gang of workers who would do the operation on site before the transport ship arrived, but Chief Wood protested at this idea profusely. There had been exactly enough torpedoes sent to arm both submarines fully and nothing more. The potential for unskilled and unsupervised workers to damage the torpedoes before they could arrive would scuttle the operation before it was even started. Lieutenant Keyes would be the one to eventually put all of the pieces together and suggested a modified version of the plan in which they would cut out the role of the transport ship and Esquimalt all together. If the pair of submarines would sail together from Esquimalt to a suitable pier on the mainland, they could save time by modifying and loading the torpedoes directly from the train cars ashore into their boats. The submarines could simply slip by any Germans they found on their way and safely move towards their destination, being able to be vectored directly into combat once their armaments had been loaded. An auxiliary crew of engineers and their equipment from Esquimalt would be transported aboard the submarines towards their destination where they would properly modify the weapons as they were loaded. This plan had its own set of risks, they would be unable to properly test if the torpedoes in their modified form would function properly from the submarine tubes. The jury was out when it came to the potential performance of the old second hand torpedoes but even with those doubts aside, they would be unaware of their effectiveness until they were launching them directly against the enemy. It was a risk that would have to be taken.

Both Vancouver proper and Port Moody were quickly removed from the list of suitable loading locations due to the as mentioned state of their port infrastructure and their exposed positions to attack. The possibility of navigating the submarines directly up the Fraser River and loading the torpedoes right off the waiting train cart was also raised; however, it was fairly quickly discounted due to the inherent risks of sailing their only operational warships up through congested fresh waters alongside the uncertainty of having proper loading infrastructure. With a general lack of suitable locations to pick from, it was soon decided that False Creek would be the ideal area to put their plan into action. False Creek was a small inlet partially wrapping around the southern side of Vancouver from Burrard Inlet, it was heavily connected to the larger British Columbia railway system and featured a sizable portside infrastructure for the navy’s needs. While very close to Vancouver proper, False Creek had avoided attack at the hands of the Germans due to the fact that it was a congested, dead end inlet with very little space to maneuver. Such an area would be very low on the priority list for any sensible raider and therefore would make just about the best location possible for a successful operation.


With the basic plan set in stone, all hands departed the cramped office space with due haste to each put their piece of the puzzle into motion. Esquimalt Dockyard had rapidly evolved from its former depressing hulk to an incredibly lively and rather hectic affair. Trousdale was kept more than busy in his attempts to direct the train itself alongside informing the coastal batteries of the outgoing boats. Engineering staff ran to and fro with tools in hand, preparing to squeeze aboard the questionable metal tubes alongside their sailing brethren. Barney Johnson had quickly gone to work planning the most efficient route from Esquimalt to False Creek while Lieutenant Keyes returned to the pair of boats to inform his fellow Lieutenant Jones and the men of the upcoming scheme. CC-1’s diesel engine received the finishing touches to complete her reassembly and soon enough, everything was set to depart. Due to the increased weight and space taken up aboard by extra crew members, equipment and the torpedoes they soon hoped to have, both vessels loaded only the bare minimum in regard to provisions and other creature comforts. Lieutenant Keyes famously jettisoned multiple enlisted sailors sea bags up out of his boats conning tower and onto the pier in order to save weight and preserve what little stability the troublesome vessels possessed. All of this was done in remarkable time and shortly after 1000 hours that morning, both CC-1 and CC-2 let loose their moorings and throttled up their diesel engines as they departed the safety of Esquimalt.

The race against time had begun as the booming symphony of Leipzig’s guns to the north picked up where the guns of Algerine had left off only a few minutes prior. Soon Vancouver would find themselves devoid of much of their electrical power as the raider set about divesting them of their nearby power stations.